Gila Wilderness Adventure
t’s a good day when you can pack up the pets and head to the Gila for a weekend of fall colors, crisp mornings, campfires, and long hikes down Little Bear Canyon. Even better when you can string a few of those days together and take our recently renovated 1972 Airstream along. After months of desert heat, we’re ready for chilly mountain mornings and some room to roam.
Our favorite boondocking spot, in what we call Elk Meadow, is one of those places we’re always happy to come back to. The first time we camped here, we woke to elk bugling as the herd moved toward water. That haunting sound and the sight of them moving through the meadow are things I’ll never forget. We tuck the Airstream between the towering pines and let the weekend take shape. There’s no ambitious itinerary. Mostly, we’re here to walk until our legs are tired, stare in awe at how big everything feels, stargaze, and listen to the sandhill cranes as we settle in for the night.
I love mornings with enough bite that you want to stay tucked under the blankets. The tiny wood stove I installed in the Airstream is for mornings just like these. There’s nothing cozier than getting a little fire roaring and sitting in front of it with a steaming cup of coffee as the sun rises.
Just in case you’re wondering where this place is that I keep yammering about, here’s a little map showing the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. It’s incredibly remote. Getting to the cliff dwellings area, near our Little Bear Canyon hike, takes roughly five to five and a half hours from Albuquerque or three-ish from Las Cruces. Depending on where you’re headed, reaching the edge of the national forest can still leave you a long way from your trailhead.
Coming from Las Cruces, you can drive across the desert and through Silver City, or take NM 152 through the Black Range Mountains. That’s my favorite: a road blessed, in my opinion, with switchbacks and curves that hug the stony cliffs, with steep drop-offs on the other side. As young’uns, my siblings and I would test how fast we could take those turns without hitting another vehicle or driving off the mountain. I’m sure we weren’t anyone else’s favorite people on the road.
One of our favorite ways to spend the day is hiking down Little Bear Canyon to the Middle Fork of the Gila River. The trail takes you across an expansive grassy meadow and up onto the mesa before slipping down the other side to follow a creek. It winds through forests and meadows until the canyon walls start closing in and cliffs soar overhead. On this hike, we followed rivulets of water along the creek bed, with gorgeous, flickering light coming through the oak leaves. As we worked our way down, the high walls cast us into shadow, and the air cooled as we climbed over logjams and skirted around waterfalls.
Finally, we came out where the creek meets the Middle Fork of the Gila River, onto a stretch of land with a grove of oaks and cottonwoods. The cliffs here are epic. Huge, rugged faces of rock rise above the river, and you keep tipping your head farther back, trying to take them all in. Their scale is hard to capture in a photograph. I try anyway. Then stand there a little longer, watching the river move beneath them and the light shift across the rock. It’s a pretty spectacular place to feel very small.
By the time we got back, we were ready for food, warm layers, and a seat by the fire. The dogs settled in after a full day of exploring, and we lingered outside as the meadow got dark. There’s something deeply satisfying about tired legs, a warm fire, and knowing your bed is just a few steps away. Boondocking still feels awfully luxurious with the Airstream waiting for us.
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